Twenty rare and exceptional paintings and works of Ethiopian modernist master Alexander “Skunder” Boghossian (1937-2003) will be offered at Bonhams Modern & Contemporary African Art sale in New York on May 4. Boghossian is one of Ethiopia’s most highly regarded Modernist artists. Boghossian’s paintings and works on paper were executed between 1960s and the 1990s and have all been kept in his family until this auction. Giles Peppiatt, Bonhams director of modern and contemporary African Art, says the dynamic works illustrate the diversity of multiple influences throughout his prolific career. Estimates of the works range from US$2,000 to US$150,000. Highlights from the collection include Union, a 1966 blue-color painting composed of forms of African symbolism and iconography, and The Big Orange, a 1971 canvas featuring various African animals and symbols. The two paintings are expected to sell for between US$150,000 and US$250,000 each.
Boghossian was born in 1937, in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, one and half years after second Italio-Abyssinan War. In 1954 Boghossian won second prize at the Jubilee Anniversary Celebration of Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie I. The next year he was awarded a scholarship to study in Europe and spent two years in London at St. Martin’s School, Central School and the Slade School of Fine Art. He then spent nine years in Paris, where he studied and taught at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. In 1966 Boghossian returned to Ethiopia and taught at the School of Fine Arts in Addis Ababa until 1969. He moved to the United States in 1970 and taught painting at Atlanta University and Howard University. During his time at the Atlanta University, he was actively participated in the Civil Rights Movement.
Boghossian was known to use bright colors to create superimposed dimensions of form and shape, inspired by Ethiopia’s long tradition of wall painting in churches and of illustrated manuscripts.
In his interview with Lodie Robinson, Boghossian offers us an important description of his work:
“In all my work, color is never a mere simulacrum of nature, but is used to illuminate, to create super imposed dimensions of form and shape, which in turn enables the viewer to first see the painting as a unit, then as a simultaneous breaking up of images, and finally as a recognition of the identities, for vision has no contour. Each viewer may thus see an endless number of images, according to his individual disposition; the images seen one day may have intermingled to form new images the next day, or even to have silently disappeared. One must mystically interpret my paintings, for they translate reality by using images of the non-real. And for this reason, in my best paintings, the figures seem to have emerged by themselves from the canvas, instead of having merely been placed there. Painting for me is not an artificial construction of relationships craftily imposed upon an exterior world. For me the meaning of my paintings is found in the expression of an inarticulated sound from within, a message for the viewer“.
Alexander “Skunder” Boghossian’s status as a Modernist pioneer was reinforced when he became the first contemporary Ethiopian artist to have works purchased by the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris (1963) and the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1965).
The collection is on view, by appointments only, at Bonhams New York galleries, from now until the auction on the afternoon of May 4.
